Trigger foods but also trigger situations!

Hi BOTTers,

I discovered something.....I know about trigger foods; I can name mine easily right off the tip of my tongue.  But, maybe it is just me, but I'd never heard or nor thought of trigger situations.  I came to that insight last night.  I never put it together before.

I'll spare you the details but I'm partnering with someone for a couple of months in an endeavor that I don't really like.  I didn't really know this person all that well but thought I've give it a try.  I have and I don't!!  It is a temporary endeavor but I'm already counting the weeks until it is over.  What went on isn't a big deal.  I can handle it and especially now that I figured out my trigger situation.

This is a really powerful insight for me.  I can identify the times in my life that I have struggled the most.  These times all have common threads with the same emotions that have triggered me MAJORLY.  Now that I've put the pieces all together, I am confident that in the future this awareness will help me and go a very long way in combating emotional overeating.  When a situation comes up that has certain elements and emotions involved, it reminds me of a very unhappy time in my past and that trigger situation triggers my emotional eating. 

I share this because I am confident this will help me stay on track.  For me last night, I thought about what is it about this situation that reminds me of my past or history.  When I thought about it in this way, BINGO, it hit me.  My strong urge to dive into emotional eating vanished.  Poof!  I got it and it went away.  I felt so much stronger and was happy.

BOTT POWER!!!
Cathy

Thanks for sharing Cathy, I am really trying to understand how MY trigger foods/situations,emotional eating and my past experiences are all intertwined.

I'm still waiting for my BINGO moment .  I don't know that I will be able to handle it when it happens  but I do know that it will happen.... and when it does I want to recognise it for what it is. 

Every layer of the "onion" that we are is a wonderful tool to help us not only eat healthy but to LIVE healthy.  We don't re-invent the wheel.  Those trigger situations are lurking in all areas of our life.

One scenerio for me is dreading something - feeling inadequate (usually that is "I don't know enough") - then I eat to avoid (How can you expect me to ______________ when I'm so hungry - I'll just fix me something to eat and then I'll _______________)  The difference now is instead of fixing myself something to eat (for it was never healthy or INSTEAD of a meal) I may procrastinate (but not by eating) but sooner than before I JUST DO IT (two commercials I use a lot is Nike's Just Do It and Prego Spaghetti Sauce - IT'S IN THERE because we really do know (It's in there - there being our head) exactly what we need (and it's NOT food) and what we want.

I wish you all Discovery Day - to discover something new about ourselves is such a marvelous thing and reason for great celebration (non-food, of course)

Be Joyful